Hey?! How come I didn't get as many blueberries? Could it be that I'm not as popular with that no good, lazy bartender as I thought? Obviously I was right to give him a piece of my mind earlier in the evening.

But all in all, many blueberries were consumed that night. And, unfortunately, the many beers that went with them......

Found a neat little skating rink tucked into a corner of downtown. Of course, few of the people who frequent downtown will come to this place, as they forgot one thing; no needle exchange box anywhere in sight! Who designs these things?

This is a shot of Calgary's beautiful pedestrian mall on a warm (+8 Degree C) and sunny Saturday afternoon. They just forgot one thing; pedestrians! Nobody comes downtown here. Traffic and parking are so bad and expensive, respectively, people just stay in the 'burbs.

It's too bad, as they are trying to rejuvenate it, but it's just me and the bums.

Saturday, 17 February 2007

After the weather we've had this week, what glorious way to end it; with a beer sampler platter from the local brew pub. Five delightful samples - for $6.50! If I hadn't actually felt the cold nectar caressing my throat, I would have thought I'd died and, through some obvious celestical error, gone to heaven. Sweet Mama, I'll be back.

And to top it off, in this Calgary Flames mad city, they even put on the Leafs game for me! (Ed. note: one possible contributing factor - the bartender is an Oilers fan).

And hear this, those of you shackled by the jack booted domination of the Ontario government, virtually every bar has happy hour from 4-7pm, every day. And after 7pm, my new best bar has a featured beer on special the rest of the night! Did I mention they put the Leafs game on?

Friday, 16 February 2007

Beautiful, but brrrrrrrr. Man, it was cold this week. Luckily that old Plus 15 system was available for us Urban Cowboys. This shot was taken once inside, from the safety of one of the avenue crossovers.

-25 doesn't sound like much, but you add in a little wind, some slushy ice and a couple of blocks walking outside and you get an eastern guy whining to all his office mates when he gets into work. "Hey Toronto Guy, why don't you get the army to take you to work? Ha ha ha". Funny office mates.

But between 5:30am (just slightly before this shot was taken) and 5:30pm, Calgary had 236 accidents. And I suspect at least 200 of them involved cracked windshields. No kidding, everyone I told about my windshield said, yeah, mine's cracked, but I'm waiting til spring.

My barber today, who also has a cracked windshield, called his repair guy while I was in the chair and got a quote for me. Who has their own windshield repair guy? What a funny little town.

Monday, 12 February 2007

Well, Mother Nature finally caught up to us. Quelle mess. It was good while it lasted. Sure, it's no North Bay kind of snow. Or upstate New York. But at -20 it doesn't have to be.

It doesn't have to be because they don't plow the roads here. The radio traffic report took five minutes to go through all the accidents and black ice and pile ups. I guess there is a dark side to low taxes. Or white side, in this case.

Of course, a chinook is forecast for one day this week. Great. Everything will melt one day, then freeze again the next. And they don't salt. They just put gravel down. Some call it sand, but sand didn't just put a hole through my windshield.

Insurance? It happens so much that windshield insurance is as much again as your regular premium. I looked up a glass replacement company? They have pages and pages of them. I guess I can use my tax savings to get it fixed......

Sunday, 11 February 2007

So when you're living in a van down by the river, what's a fella to do?

Except most of the fellas living down by the river in Calgary don't use these. They just go.....well....everywhere. It's so bad here, city council has just passed a "no pooping" law. No kidding. And, of course, the bleeding hearts are condemning it as an attack on our most vulnerable citizens.

Most vulnerable?

I wonder if any of them have tried walking through our downtown parks lately. Do they understand how intimidating it is to have dozens of these vulnerable citizens stare you up and down as their next meal ticket? It's too bad that many citizens have essentially abandoned our parks to the homeless.

To top it off, rather than dealing with this problem (other than passing the aforementioned "Don't Poop and Scoot" law) all through our parks we have these little blue porta potties everywhere. Nothing says picnic better than an aroma wafting from one of these blue babies.

After I got my MBA, I foolishly went to work for big business (one of only many foolish things I've done). But I see I should have opened up a noodle shop in Chinatown......down by the river. Couldn't have turned out any worse.

Urban Cowboy

Welcome

Hi, I'm Jim Arnott. For whatever reason, I've decided to create a blog. Why would someone want to read my blog? If you have any ideas, please let me know.

My shtick will be to post photos and comments using only my cell phone. Why? It's not because I'm too cheap to buy a real camera. Don't believe those rumours. It's because, well.......this is the only camera I choose to have. Yeah, that's it.

And based on this photo, maybe these low resolution babies are the way to go. Yikes!